乐生活Sometimes, the "stream of impressions" makes anthropologists more real, and it’s really surprising.
People often feel that men gather together to talk about serious issues, such as political economy, history, geography, military affairs and so on, and women gather together to be gossip.
Some people also move out of the so-called evolutionary psychology, believing that in primitive society men need to exchange key information when hunting, while most of the women’s social needs are based on emotional needs and social ties, which sounds reasonable or not?
But after a great deal of observation, anthropologists discovered that in fact, the contents of men’s and women’s conversations are all alike — nothing serious, they are boring gossip.
Kate Fox, an anthropologist I mentioned before, has done the observation and quantification of "bar talk" in the UK. There are several interesting points to discover:
– The "importance" of what men talk about together, and what women talk about with women, is actually not very different. Men talk more about football women than about politics and economics.
– However, when women are present, men tend to talk about "big" topics, possibly showing off.
– Men and women have different conversational patterns that make conversations "sound" different. For example, women are more likely to use "yes," "ah, I’ll say it," "my God". This kind of tone and tone makes the conversation sound more like family life, but men are less likely to do so.
– Women put more emphasis on "seeking resonance" in their conversation, dispelling their negative emotions or insecurity. Kate Fox used an extreme example: "to depreciate himself and listen to compliments of the other person" (for example, if you see I am fat, if my body is just like you, then the other party will say where you are already thin, but on the other hand, I am too big in the skeleton, I want to be more rounded…)
Men will get into the friendly dispute between "XX than you" in chatting, for example, my team is better than you, my car is better than yours, and my wife is better than you. But in fact, these things are irrelevant, but it is in this dispute that men consolidate their own spirit.
Of course, these are based on observations of British bars, which may have geographical and cultural limitations. The key is that men and women do develop differences in communication patterns, which are the result of socialization. Moreover, gender related stereotypes have different effects on men and women.
It should be noted that the purpose of the study is not to talk about what to say, or to draw a conclusion about how a man is like a woman, but to study the motivation, mode and function of communication. Anthropologists still care about this.
As for a specific individual, what kind of communication mode and motivation should be chosen? For example, no matter what I talk about, I will be pressed on the wall.
